Fiction: ‘The Starlight Princess and the Lightning Prince’

Once upon a time, a beautiful star fell in love with a flash of lightning.

She was twinkling merrily in the sky, watching over the world from her position in the constellations, when a brilliant flash lit up the darkness. He was brighter than any star she had ever seen. The electricity in the air rushed around her. It lit a spark within her heart and left her tingling with a strange new energy she had never felt before.

Her mother, the Moon, frowned when her daughter told her about this prince.

‘You are sweet and faithful. Each night you return to your place in the sky, watching over the world with love and patience. But he is not constant,’ she warned. ‘He comes and goes as he pleases. He’s unpredictable and impulsive. He’s not a reliable prince.’

But the princess didn’t listen.

Every night she watched for her lightning prince. Sometimes he would appear so suddenly that sound could barely keep up with him, and on these occasions her heart would practically burst with joy. He would dance with her through the sky for hours, and then vanish as though he had never existed.

And then other times she would wait for him night after night after night, her heart aching as though someone was squeezing it. The world looked much darker without him. The stargazers on Earth could see her grow dimmer and dimmer as time dragged on until her light was nearly gone.

Her mother, the Moon, looked at her daughter mournfully. She tried to make her serene old face shine brighter to cheer the star up, but it wasn’t in her nature to blaze with brilliance; she could only glow softly, as she had always done.

Weeks went by.

And then months.

The beautiful star had almost disappeared from the sky entirely, when a dazzling flash of light appeared. After all this time, he had come back. She spread her rays of light towards him and all the stargazers thought that there had never been a more beautiful star to grace the heavens.

But of course, the flash was just that; a momentary flash.

He was gone again in an instant.

Her heart sunk into a deep sorrow, leaving her lovely rays of light in gloom. She sighed heavily. Bit by bit her light faded from the sky until she finally vanished once and for all. Everyone who was out under the stars that night noticed that the jewel of the sky had disappeared from the spot she had been in since the dawn of time, leaving the constellation without its heart.